Sunderland Manages as Titans Get It Right

All around him, bodies were falling.

All around him, jump shots were not.

Aaron Sunderland looked all around the Bren Center, sizing up Saturday night’s first half between the winless wonders of the Big West Conference, and would have pinched his nose closed if he hadn’t been busy trying to dribble basketballs through a minefield of writhing Titans and Anteaters.

“ Oooooeeeeee! “ Sunderland squealed. “That was bad. We were missing rebounds, they were missing rebounds, we were making turnovers, they were making turnovers. I kept waiting for somebody to do something right.”

Finally, Sunderland could wait no more. Cal State Fullerton’s junior point guard took matters into his own hands, along with the basketball and, eventually, the game, trying to wring some sense out of a matchup that should have been subtitled: In Case You’re Wondering Why Cal State Fullerton and UC Irvine Are a Combined 0-9 Since Dec. 30.

One reason was running abreast of Sunderland, Fullerton shooting guard Joe Small, whose jump shot had pulled a Titanic in January, clanking away at a 32% clip while the Titans lost four in a row. Small’s slump was anything but--under normal conditions, he is the premier jump-shooter in the conference--and the rut was deepening during Saturday’s first half, with Small missing six of his first seven shots.

When Small goes a whole half with one field goal, and Fullerton walks off the court with a four-point lead, it can only mean one thing:

Fullerton is playing Irvine.

You cannot talk a basketball through a hoop, although Sunderland gave it a try. “I told Joe before the game, ‘Tonight, you got to go out early and hit some threes,’ ” Sunderland said. “We needed this win, and we needed Joe.”

The advice turned out to be a brick, giving birth to many others. Sunderland kept plugging away.

More talking to Small.

More positive reinforcement to Small.

More bounce passes to Small.

Practice, practice. With 9:45 left in the game, Small cast up a shot from beyond the three-point line. It was high enough. It was long enough. It was . . . good .

Stunned, Small threw both arms in the air. Touchdown. It was a happy moment for Sunderland, Small and the rest of the Titans. They were welcoming back an old friend.

The next shot Small attempted went in. So did the next, another three-point parachute. “He was comin’ on out,” Sunderland said, “like a rat in a hole.”

Small went four for five in the second half, and the Titans completed an excavation of their own. For the first time this year, they won, 86-83. For the first time in four Big West games, somebody else was dirtied.

Sunderland knew the standings. Before tipoff, Fullerton was 0-3 in conference, alone in eighth place only because Irvine and San Jose State were co-habitating in 10th at 0-4.

“We had to get a win,” Sunderland reasoned. “If we didn’t get one tonight, ooooh, it would’ve been bad.”

Amid the malaise, Sunderland had what he called his best game of the season, which would translate into his best game in blue and orange. Twelve points in that rudderless first half. Twenty-three points of seven-of-13 shooting altogether. Five assists. And, most significantly, nine of 13 from the free-throw line, most of them in the waning moments to sustain an incredibly shrinking lead.

Irvine presses on offense, a kink Rod Baker is still trying to shake out of the system. But Irvine also presses on defense, at times with an intensity that wouldn’t draw a sneer in the Big East, and the last two minutes of this game was one of those times.

Fullerton botched back-to-back inbound passes. Anteater guard Gerald McDonald turned one into a three-point basket. Anteater forward Elgin Rogers turned the other into a driving lay-in. A 10-point gap at 1:31 was down to three at 0:51--and still there with 42.6 seconds left and Sunderland stepping to the foul line.

In a momentary lapse, Sunderland missed both shots. Visions of an Irvine upset danced through the aisles of the Bren Center. But Sunderland’s second miss was so short, it kicked off the front of the rim and right into the hands of Titan center Sean Williams--the Fullerton rebound of the year--and Williams whipped the ball to Small, who was sent to the line, where he didn’t miss.

Order was restored, at least until the final buzzer, when Sunderland and teammate Bruce Bowen were spotted wrestling at midcourt with Anteaters McDonald and Uzoma Obiekea. Bowen tried to tee off on Obiekea, claiming that the Irvine reserve had attempted to trip him, repeatedly, on inbound passes. As usual, Sunderland was there to restore the peace.

“I was just trying to shake (Bowen) off,” Sunderland explained with a smile. “No big deal. I just wanted to get him out of there.”

It was a mess of a game, a mess of an ending. But the Titans had a custodian at point guard, and with Sunderland prodding and pleading, they were the ones who cleaned up.